N.B. global frame of reference -
Music, Literature, the Visual Arts, Landscape, Current Affairs.
A special emphasis on Dorset and Greece, plus other countries where I've lived and worked (and others which I visit regularly or know well) - Jim.

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Monday, 31 October 2011

I took two of my grandchildren to the skate-park opposite Maumbury Rings yesterday evening, and happened to hear the drum beat from a group of pagans holding a ceremony at Maumbury Rings. I went to have a closer look, and discovered that it was a meeting of the Dolmen Grove. I was interested in the antlers worn by Taloch (beating the drum). I have been researching the history of Maumbury Rings, and antler-picks were an important part of the archaeological finds.

Sunday, 30 October 2011

Until now, I'd never quite understand why the name James was the same as the Greek Iakovos. How did one derive from the other, especially as Greek friends always insist that Jimmy is the same as Dimitri, James the same as Demetrios? There is in fact no etymological connection between Demetrios and James.

We all know that the Jacobean period refers to the reign of King James I.

But how was one supposed to know that James comes from an Old French variant of a late Latin name, Iacomus, which is itself apparently a dialect variant of Iacobus (New Testament Greek Iakobos; Hebrew Yaaqov)? Iacobus-Iacombus-Iacobus, no need to explain the subtle sound shifts en route to James.

So Mr Bond could have introduced himself as Giacomo, Iago, or indeed as Jim, Jimmy, Jimi, Jamie or Jimbo.

Not quite the same thing. Less gravitas:

"My name is Bond...Jimmy Bond."

Ultimately, I suppose Mr Bond owed his name to Saint James the Apostle and martyr, son of Zebedee and Salome.

The culmination of Black History Month: exhilarating African drumming and dancing from Bournemouth's Zubida Movements (Natasha Z); great rap from Liryc (South Africa); live poetry from Jamaican-influenced Bristol (Edson Burton); plus Gregg Kofi Brown and the Osibisa Collective. Little seven-year-old Ella was dynamite on the dance floor! I'm amazed that people weren't queuing up and down the High Street.

"From hence we turned up to Dorchester, the county town, though not the largest town in the county. Dorchester is indeed a pleasant agreeable town to live in, and where I thought the people seemed less divided into factions and parties than in other places; for though here are divisions, and the people are not all of one mind, either as to religion or politics, yet they did not seem to separate with so much animosity as in other places. Here I saw the Church of England clergyman, and the Dissenting minister or preacher drinking tea together, and conversing with civility and good neighbourhood, like Catholic Christians and men of a Catholic and extensive charity. The town is populous, though not large; the streets broad, but the buildings old and low. However, there is good company, and a good deal of it; and a man that coveted a retreat in this world might as agreeably spend his time and as well in Dorchester as in any town I know in England." Daniel Defoe

Sir John Major has an interesting article in the Financial Times (October 27), "The price of the drift to fiscal union". He has some provocative things to say about Greece:

"Of course, it has behaved foolishly. But that does not mitigate the present pain. As salaries are cut, new taxes are imposed and other taxes rise. It is no wonder people are frightened. Some ask: why is Greece in the eurozone at all? The ease of her entry exemplifies the follies of the founders. France insisted: “You cannot say no to the country of Plato.” Maybe not, but every European is now paying the price for admitting an economically unfit nation to compete in the eurozone.

To safeguard the eurozone in the longer term requires a fundamental change of policy. It must become a fiscal union; a union of transfer payments to off-set regional disparities; or it must shrink. The latter option – essentially expelling Greece – has political consequences. There is no mechanism to do it. What would Greece’s future be? Would she remain democratic in the chaos that might follow? Pushing Greece out is not a risk-free option."

(I suggest you buy the Financial Times and read the full article, or register online).It seems that Alan Greenspan holds similar viewsas well as Nicolas Sarkozy in Le Monde

This quote appears to have a certain universal appeal, but I hadn't come across it before reading the story in Penguin Classics (Selected Short Stories, translated by Roger Colet). Colet renders it thus:

"nothing but an exchange of bad tempers during the day and bad smells during the night".

"The studio is torn down, all the people who played on it are dead, the instruments have been sold off. But you are listening to a moment that happened in time 60 years ago and you are hearing it just as sharp as when it was made. That remains an amazing thing to me."

Tom Waits talking to Tim Adams
The Observer, 23 October, 2011.

"I remember when I worked in a restaurant, sweeping up by a jukebox, and thinking, 'OK, how do you get in the jukebox and come out of it? That's the real trick."

I’VE JUST read in your newspaper that Greeks are worried about the food cost rising 3 percent in one year. How sad! I know it’s not normal people who have done all this to your country! It must be the system around you that made it possible.

Well, let me tell you all how much prices have gone up here in Finland. Total food costs are 20 percent higher than in other EU countries. Food prices have gone up 7 percent in one year, electricity 20 percent in one year, apartments /houses up to 70 percent in 10 years, bus tickets 27 percent in 5 years, fuel up 9 percent in one year, while alcohol and beer cost 70 percent more than in other EU countries.

We have to work until the age of 64 and 65. Our pensions after that are around 45 to 50 percent of the salary (whereas in Greece I believe it is 80 percent). We pay high taxes on almost everything we buy and own.

Sometimes it feels that the government is taxing also the air we breathe! Our tax system makes life very, very tight. And now the new government is planning to raise our taxes again!

However, we have little corruption.

Now I read that Greek people don’t want to pay these new solidarity and property taxes.

Your country has unpaid taxes worth 41bn euros. The capital outflow from January to July 2010 was 34bn euros and continues by 3bn-4bn every month. Now you have plans to build a new Formula 1 racetrack in the Peloponnese and a new cultural centre (opera, library) in Athens. Could someone tell me how this is all possible?

From my salary, that I earn by working four days a week, I’m afraid that after I’ve taken care of the housing costs (electricity, water, garbage, road dues, property tax, insurance etc), bills (like telephone, TV et al) and food and income tax (now 27 percent), not much has been left.

I always buy my clothes from the secondhand or flea market. There is no eating out, no movies, no holidays abroad in my life.

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

Don't miss this great event! Last year it was very enjoyable, with some superb drumming and dancing by Zubida Movements, and more good music from a group called Dub Educators. It's where I first met the poet Louisa Adjoa Parker.

With inscriptions it's also difficult to be sure of the punctuation marks.

Here's the Barnes poem, "Woone Rule", from which this quotation (penultimate line) "What is, is best, we needen fear" is taken:

An' while I zot, wi' thoughtvul mind,
Up where the lwonesome Coombs do wind,
An' watch'd the little gully slide
So crookèd to the river-zide;
I thought how wrong the Stour did zeem
To roll along his ramblèn stream,
A-runnèn wide the left o' south,
To vind his mouth, the right-hand zide.

But though his stream do teäke, at mill.
An' eastward bend by Newton Hill,
An' goo to lay his welcome boon
O' daïly water round Hammoon,
An' then wind off ageän, to run
By Blanvord, to the noonday zun,
'Tis only bound by woone rule all,
An' that's to vall down steepest ground.

I've been re-reading Thomas Hardy's poem, Nature's Questioning. Can anybody tell me which is the correct last line?

My 1923 edition of Collected Poems of Thomas Hardy gives this as the final verse:

"Thus things around. No answerer I...
Meanwhile the winds, and rains,
And Earth's old glooms and pains
Are still the same, and Life and Death are neighbours nigh".

The 1898 Wessex Poems and Other Verses ends differently:

"And Earth's old glooms and pains
Are still the same, and gladdest Life Death neighbours nigh".

Presumably Hardy himself made the changes. Which version do you prefer? Which version should be inscribed in stone at Poundbury Cemetery? How is the meaning changed if one reverts to the earlier ending?

Sunday, 16 October 2011

It's a long time since I saw Greek comedian Harry Klynn in a live show (in Corfu or in his home town, Thessaloniki), but I was glad to be reminded of his special brand of humour and stand-up satire, by blogger CorfuKorfu.

Friday, 14 October 2011

Extortion Game How much of this is fact or fiction? Like 'the payment of pensions to the dead', some of these stories do the rounds and keep resurfacing.

Eurointelligence, 19 October:

"Commenting in Bild Paul Ronzheimer attacks the Greek government for its inaction against Greeks bringing their money out of the country. “While the euro-countries send one package of billions (of euros) after the other the rich Greek have since a long time brought their money out of the country”, he writes. “There is still no trace of the announced transfer tax, tax evaders are still not being punished, the Greek elite are still protecting one another. Grandiose announcements by the Greek finance ministers to publish a list of all tax evaders have been taken back”, Ronzheimer says."

Thursday, 13 October 2011

It is a much more meaningful experience to visit Dourahani Monastery (above; the opposite side of the lake from Ioannina) than Palaiokastritsa Monastery in Corfu, which has been turned into a commercial tourist trap, with salesmen of "folk-art", commercial photographers and artists, and two ladies in Corfiot costumes helping people up the steps towards the waiting photographer.

I suppose it is one path towards privatisation. Time for some people to recall some relevant passages?

Mark 11:12-16:"On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple area and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts."

Matthew 21:12-19:"Jesus entered the temple areaand drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves."It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a 'den of robbers.'"